Climate change can’t be stopped or reversed. So why are climate scientists sounding so hopeful?
—
I am not a scientist. I don’t play one on TV. I follow climate science a tad more than the average person. What I’ve discovered however is a pattern. A pattern that is soaking in denial. This denial comes in the form of fear and hope. Fear is the bedrock of the industrial culture. Hope is the devil’s greatest trick. Today’s climate scientists and experts are scared to death of not only losing their careers but possibly their lives from fanatics. In a culture that doesn’t believe in death but believes deeply in progress, these folks peddle hope because they believe it’s their only option and because they can make some serious money along the way.
He, like Mann, will discuss anything but the truth of the matter. Climate change has no solution.
|
On a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, one of worlds foremost climate scientists, Dr. Michael Mann repeated the fear and hope mantra. Maher began by discussing Obama’s climate plan which includes cutting emissions (power plant, mainly coal) by 32% by the year 2030. His first question to Mann was, “Won’t we all be dead by then?” Mann replied, “No, the good news is um, we’re still at the point where we can make the sort of cuts in our carbon emissions that we need to, to make sure we don’t get irreversible dangerous climate change.” Like many climate scientists he spews the venom of hope by informing people that it’s not the midnight hour and we need to get serious about the climate right now. To his credit, Bill Maher played the realist during the interview by pointing out that NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen gave a similar response 10 years earlier. Will there come a day when climate scientists tell us the truth?
Dr. Hansen is a proponent of a revenue-neutral fee and dividend system which imposes a price on carbon that returns the money collected from the fossil fuel industry equally to all legal residents of the United States. According to Hansen, “The solution [climate change] has to be a rising price on carbon and then the real dirty fuels like tar sands would fall on the table very quickly.” Hansen also supports efficient energy use, renewable energy, smart grid technology, generation IV nuclear reactors, and carbon capture and storage. He, like Mann, will discuss anything but the truth of the matter. Climate change has no solution. The change that is occurring and the abrupt change that is our future is already baked into the cake.
◊♦◊
It doesn’t matter if it’s 350.org founder Bill McKibben, or 350.org board of directors and best selling author, Naomi Klein, the story of false hope remains the same. Never question the story we tell ourselves about ourselves and continue to negotiate with the non-negotiable. Climate Scientist, Dr. Katherine Hayhoe also sings the praises of renewable energy since the U.S. military (considered by many to be the largest consumer of petroleum in the world) is pursuing such an endeavor. It’s the same story that Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson tells. He is a renewable advocate as well. Hayhoe and Jacobson, like all the aforementioned, believe in a human centric narrative and more importantly, a civilized narrative. They don’t want to abandon the machine, just refine it. This narrative is our predicament yet we continue to believe that it is a solution to the very problems it creates. Read that again and one can begin to see the tough spot we are truly in.
None of them seem willing to tell us what’s actually happening.
|
When an individual’s livelihood, reputation and self-esteem depend upon the institution … the truth then becomes secondary. What is the truth you may ask? I suggest to find out you take a few hours and sit in your local mall. Find a seat on a bench and just observe the masses. After about an hour start to ponder some of these questions: Why are people at the mall? What are they buying? Where do these items come from? How are they manufactured? Where do these products go after we dispose of them? What impact do these products have on people, the planet and the climate. You don’t have to be a climate scientist or an expert in the field to see what is happening. We live in a global industrial economy that is devouring the world and one of the most severe consequences is abrupt climate change. How do we respond? By digging ourselves in deeper.
Today the folks we turn to when we need important and timely information about climate consequences are nothing more than frightened pawns or opportunists who are swimming in institutional rhetoric. Some have of them are making a pretty decent living spinning our false narrative. These men and women have been attacked and even propped up by the status quo. Some have sold their souls to the corporation. Some believe deeply in the narrative called hope. None of them seem willing to tell us what’s actually happening. We are tired of cowards. We are tired of people peddling bullshit. We want honesty and integrity. We can handle the truth. We have no choice.
Photo: Getty Images
If some PhD who studied the ice cores from ages past would publish the correlation between ppm of CO2 and average ambient Earth temperature I am certain that teaching the public about Global Warming/Climate Change/Global Heating would be far easier. I have been looking but have not found it. How much CO2 in the atmosphere will raise the Global Average Temperature by 4degrees Centigrade to 6 degrees Centigrade? 10 degrees C? The same would apply to methane in the atmosphere. How much methane in the atmosphere will raise the Global Average Temperature by 4 degrees Centigrade? Cause and Effect Needs… Read more »
I am listening to nature bats last. Dr. Mann does an excellent job of laying out that things will be bad. It isn’t a fire and brimstone speech, but the negatives are briefly described. We have a brief window of staying in 2*C. It appears maybe your group would like to believe that we don’t. That’s ok, but stopping your NBL audio, I don’t see how condemning Micheal Mann furthers the case of climate action as you see it.
More importantly, are you inspiring people to act on climate?
I don’t see a nefarious institutional leash in this. He talks about the really bad stuff briefly. He talks about solutions. What should he do to satisfy you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ2cCPRS-Q8
Tell the people what’s already baked into the cake. There are no solutions to climate change. We keep creating solutions that create more of a predicament. I would like him to stop perpetuating the false narrative of renewables.
You are going to have to show me renewables is a false narrative. EROEI of wind is 18 and growing. That is enough to make more wind generators with wind generators. Hydro is at a 100.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EROI_-_Ratio_of_Energy_Returned_on_Energy_Invested_-_USA.svg
There is damage already baked in the cake as you say. I don’t see anyone denying it. They do spend more time on the solutions vs how bad the problems are.
What I hear being said is that we can limit the damage by simply not going more co2 emissions but less going down to zero sooner than later.
Renewables are an attempt (which is not going to replace the scale of fossil fuels) to maintain the infinite growth paradigm.
Scientists looking to make “some serious money” by peddling “false hope”? Care to offer some extraordinary evidence for that extraordinary claim? Love to hear all about it.
No evidence required since you’re misquoting me. Making a decent living as a college professor is not shocking. Having your organization sponsored by the Rockefeller’s is hypocritical at best. Book deals are also a great perk along with paid speaking gigs on TV and around the world. Follow the links.
I’ve known bleak all along. I have put out so much bleak in the past, that people stop me from talking bleak. But they also want the path forward on this. I also talk about that. My congregation is excited about the path forward. http://robertscribbler.com/2016/03/07/climate-change-why-2016-may-be-the-most-important-election-in-us-history/ Probably the Worst Crisis Humankind has Ever Faced — Which Makes the 2016 Election Absolutely Critical Even achieving that rather difficult but probably survivable future will necessitate very swift action. For each year in which a peak in human greenhouse gas emissions is delayed, the more difficult it becomes to limit future warming. (Amount of… Read more »
Let’s all kill ourselves. That will solve the problem.
This is a kind of response that would from putting things too bleak. The next step is “Let’s build a better society”.
Status quo is societal failure. Building a better society now that we have to, is something to look forward to.
The thing I am beginning to see more of lately, is so called deep greens disparaging renewable energy technology, saying it actually has a more damaging footprint then currently used centralized fossil fuel technologies. They never have any real numbers to illuminate their proposition, they just assert it. I find the practice to be reprehensible, and am beginning to think it is just trolling by right wing think tanks, or energy companies. I worked at a power plant for 24 years and I can guarantee you we were anything but green or low impact on the environment. I was also… Read more »
John Gilkison
I love what you are doing. That is really great.
By the way, what does NTHE stand for?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
More than that, we underestimate the power of acknowledging the truth. The Truth being that we have exploited our habitat for selfishly blind and morally indifferent reasons.
This is the kind of article that makes people throw up their hands and vote GOP. If it is hopeless than why not grab all the gusto you can for what time we have left. If there is nothing we can do, then why work on it at all. Why not play until we die. That is the reaction your article give me, so if you are looking for action, you have created the opposite result by taking the most negative attitude possible. Now if you take the tack that there is ALWAYS hope and are ALWAYS solutions (until you… Read more »
It seems to me that our hopeful narrative isn’t working….so we should continue along that path and hope for different results? That’s by definition, insanity. I suggest we try acceptance or as I call it, reality. You would be surprised at what one can accomplish.
Civilizations rise and fall the same as everything else in nature. It’s irrational to think this one will be any different. Maybe humanity will be wiped out, maybe a remnant will survive. But things will change. They always do.
Soooo you are not getting the truth? I have studied climate science on my own for 10 years and I don’t agree with your presentation. If we are going to change, there must be a white light at the end of the tunnel. WIth your presentation why not just commit suicide. There is no hope.. The earth is warming from ghg’s and nothing else. The hope is the transition into a less dangerous climate to live in than the fossil fuel industry would have us to believe in. I suggest you use a little more hope and solutions in your… Read more »
The entire point of my essay is that hope is a negotiation tactic for those who refuse to face reality. There are no solutions to a predicament and simply repeating the story we tell ourselves about our selves isn’t a way out of this mess. If you go through all the links I provide and spend some time there’s plenty of information. If my presentation angers you it should because it gets to the very root of our situation. Besides you would be surprised the action people take when coming to a place of acceptance rather than the hopium filled… Read more »
Will there come a day when climate scientists tell us the truth? I have had a forum at my church for two years talking mostly about climate change. I cannot lay out too negative a future without panicing my group. And they are experienced at listening to me talk about this. My group is quite far ahead of most groups of people on climate change. I sell hopium as you would put it. You cannot talk about this too negatively for the common person. I will point out the negatives and how important it is to change as fast as… Read more »
If a church group can’t deal with truth then I’m correct in assessing our extinction in the very near term.
I didn’t say They can’t handle bad news. I have to make this a good thing to so they want to hear more. Its also important to sell solutions so there is a bright goal to work for. And they accept this. Something that is missing in your piece here. The carrot and the stick is just fine. Each audience has its balance and a good speaker can feel that. This piece is so morose that I suspect you have fallen off the horse. Who wants to listen to a message with no hopium? I do mention the serious problems… Read more »
As a common person I’m sick and tired of being spun. Tell me the truth.
Mr Green. I don’t mean to belittle your ten years of personal study, but some of us have been involved with the environmental movement far longer. I my self have been an activist for 50 years. Please tell me what you are going to do about the rising sea levels, the increasing Methane levels, the over heating planet. The hundreds of millions of climate refugees? We needed to power down, people down and keep it in the ground many years ago when we had a shot. It is all too little and too late now. I know reality is a… Read more »
I don’t know of any activists around me that act the way you two do. Make a list of all we need we can do and need to do. Engage you audience into activism to give our future generations the best climate we can. Proper hopium is needed to be active. There is plenty we can do and the first is education. There is damage cooked in already and we can avoid future further damage by moving society in the direction that does so. If you are an activist, then are you doing something about this or are you sitting… Read more »
Climate change has become another buzz word incessantly prostituted through many BS Media sources and idiots like AL Gore, While climate change is a natural process,> Not denying< what is unnatural is the continued dumping of toxins into the oceans, into the atmosphere, and what morons would cut down their own oxygen scrubbers, and natural water filtration system, It is those in charge of corporations, and their governments that have allowed this, and yes many people have bought into it as well… great brainwashing tool the media. If anyone cannot use their own common sense and logic, then we are… Read more »
Hi Dan,
Here is a beginning level showing how it is humans that warmed the earth.
Scientists tell the truth or they are fired and done for in science.
Fossil fuel scientists are paid to lie or they are fired.
The co2 has a human signature to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXgDrr6qiUk